Allscripts revealed late last week that it is purchasing McKesson’s health IT business and, for $185 million in cash, it obtained approximately 500 hospital customers comprising 5 percent more of the EHR market than it had before the deal.

That means Allscripts market share for hospitals in the U.S. and Canada more than doubled to 10 percent, according to HIMSS Analytics.

Matt Schuchardt, HIMSS Analytics director of business development and innovation, pulled some data from HIMSS Analytics’ LOGIC health IT market intelligence platform to create these two maps.

You can see how Allscripts customers were geographically distributed prior to the deal. Compare the maps by moving the white bar, on right of screen, to the left.

Now, Allscripts is headquartered in Chicago and the lion’s share of its customers previously resided east of the Mississippi — save for that pocket in and around Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Canada.

But in the second map you can see McKesson’s presence west of the Mississippi River, including mid-western states such as Iowa and Arkansas as well its strong stamp on the West Coast near its San Francisco, California headquarters.

“This pushes Allscripts across the country more than it was before,” Schuchardt said. “This makes them a national competitor, a player in every state.”

Whereas it’s tempting to think that EHR vendors are already competing across the country, the above maps, when taken together, show that Allscripts was more prominent east of the Mississippi.

Which brings us back to that opening slogan. Just like care delivery is local, there are significant advantages for EHR vendors to have a footprint in specific regions.

“EHR vendors struggle to sell to physician practices or regional health centers if there are no other customers around that they can connect to,” Schuchardt said. “So the question is: Will Allscripts hold McKesson’s market share or does the acquisition help them grow the combined market share?”